A Month of Projects - June - Altered Paper Clips

Peaceful Civil Rights Protesters in Los Angeles, June 2020
Original photo in Los Angeles Times.

Let's face it. It is hard to focus on the trivial right now.

Like many people, my creative energy was already sapped from the strangely timeless world of pandemic lock down. It was weird and twitchy to have my husband and daughter at home all the time, just when I had become accustomed to an empty house. But I have reoriented, and now I'm happy they are here and safe. My focus was on how to generate income to make up for the loss of it, while my husband is furloughed.

I'm a little old white lady. Now suddenly I am living in a nation where the pain that was a dull ache that I could ignore most of the time because of my privilege, has turned into a conflagration of fury and outrage. 

At this minute, my artworks don't seem needed in comparison to my ability to write letters to my representatives, or local officials. My energy is better spent helping people find work, and helping support the needed changes in our society at large. My attention is needed on learning how to help effectively, and implementing those strategies. That's going to be my main personal focus.

In the past when I felt powerless to help, I would make a beautiful doll and sell it to raise money. I might get to that too. But for now I have other priorities for my time.

So this month's creativity projects are very small, and entirely practical, for mostly my own use. Following inspiration from the ScraPerfect design team challenge a couple of years ago, I will be making altered or embellished paper clips for this month's projects.

Like the ATC's, these are miniature craft pieces that I can do pleasantly as I sit with my husband of an evening, while shouting at the television news.

I will use these decorative paper clips in my journals and notebooks, as I keep track of the letters I write. They make good little bookmarks.

I'm going to end up with a bunch of them. Certainly let me know if you would like a couple of pretty little paper clips. I will pop some in an envelope and mail them to you.

Here are the first few.